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First Person: Charmaine Crooks

Track star and Olympian gets behind the Olympic movement
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Charmaine Crooks

Charmaine Crooks was just 17 years old when she made the Canadian Olympic team, starting an impressive track and field career than lasted 20 years. She and her relay teammates took away a silver medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Games and in 1996 at Atlanta she was Canada’s flag bearer for the opening ceremony.

She is one of only two Canadian women to be asked to join the International Olympic Committee, an organization that despite its problems remains one of the most powerful and recognized groups in the world. Barely a year goes by when Crooks’ efforts, whether humanitarian or sport driven, are not recognized in some form.

She was recently elected vice president of the executive committee of the World Olympians Association.

Crooks sat down in Vancouver with reporter Clare Ogilvie to talk about her life and her passion for sport, and what the Olympics can really do to create change on a personal and global level.

Pique: Vancouver and Whistler have just marked the two-year countdown to the Games. What does Vanoc need to focus on in the next two years to get ready?

Charmaine Crooks: Really we are now in the operational phase and we are learning from the test events, such as the ones that happened recently. It is now about holding steady on the course. The high praise we just got from the IOC (The International Olympic Committee visited Vancouver for an update last week) was confirmation that we are on track but we must never take our eyes off the finish line.

Pique: What do you enjoy doing when you are not involved with all of your Olympic, sport, and humanitarian commitments?

CC: Well, I am reading two good books right now, (President Bill) Clinton’s book Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World and I am reading (former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve) Alan Greenspan’s book The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. It is fantastic. I love reading books about key leaders who have changed our lives and who have impacted us. But I am a pretty driven person and I love to work. Of course, I love to have fun and love gourmet cooking, especially Caribbean food.

I do some work for charities as well. My dad passed away from prostate cancer and my mom from a very rare lung cancer, so if there is a chance for me to do something in their honour I will do that.

A lot of my focus now on the charity front is with a humanitarian aspect. I am driven specifically to do some work there.

Pique: How long have you lived in B.C.?

CC: I moved here in the end of 1989 (to train with 2006 Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame inductee Dr. Doug Clement, who is widely regarded as one of the top track and field coaches in Canada. He is a two-time Olympian who has also been selected to represent Canada in at least 30 international events as a coach, general manager and medical staff member.)

Pique: What do you love most about living in B.C.?

CC: The people — definitely the people. And I love our beautiful terrain. Everywhere you go you see either the water or the mountains and it really is awe inspiring.

Pique: You are a five-time Olympian and represented Canada for close to 20 years in athletics. Do you still work out?

CC: Whenever I travel I have this thing that I will stay on the same floor as the fitness centre so I can roll out of bed and get to the gym once or twice a day. I walk a lot and I run maybe twice a week. I love lifting weights. That is the thing, to build your bones and build your strength. I always say as the age goes north the body goes south, so lifting weights is important. I watch what I eat and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

For me it really is a health matter. When I ran my body was an instrument to perform, now it is an instrument to stay healthy. It is not always easy but I try.

Pique: How did you become a runner?

CC: We moved to Canada from Jamaica when I was about five years old and all my (eight) brothers and sisters were involved in sports. My dad was very athletic too. He used to lift weights and run, and after coming home from work he would still find time to cross the street and go for a run around the park. And my mom loved to run and ran track (growing up) in Jamaica.

We lived right across the street from a park (in Toronto) and the park would be flooded and I would try to speed skate a couple of times.

But it was really running that captured me.

When you have a big family you can’t afford to buy the fancy skates and buy all kinds of equipment, but running was a really natural activity that we all did.

I always say that the first running we did was because we were a family of nine and there were six seats at the table so the first to run and get a seat were the first shift for eating.

Pique: When did you first think about the Olympics?

CC: I always knew that I wanted to go to the Olympics. Watching the 1976 Montreal Games I remember being inspired by Greg Joy, who was the high jumper. I just remember the pageantry and coming home everyday and watching the Games and really being motivated — and not just by how the athletes were doing, but by the whole bigness of it.

The common thread with getting involved with sport and with training has been the real exposure to so many different countries and so many different kinds of athletes with the same drive to want to be the best, but yet we all had that unique celebration of our country and who we were and we knew that what we were doing wasn’t only for us, it was to bring great pride to your community and your country.”

Pique: You are involved in the community at various levels. Can you tell me about what you are seeing particularly for young women in Canada?

CC: “I think a lot of the encouragement for young girls in sport comes from the family. Knowing that they have an environment where they are encouraged to be who they want to be, and sport is another vehicle for that outlet. Schools are also very important for that.

From the Olympic point of view and sport participation, participation rates are going up, it is very clear — there are more kids playing soccer and so on.

But you get the drop-off around the time they are teens.

We have to continue to expand and make facilities accessible to young girls and sport programs for education which tell young girls that, yes, it is possible to have this career path in sport, but if you don’t have this career path it is also possible to make sport and activity part of your daily routine so whether you are eight or 80 you can always have physical activity for your health.

But I think the best way to really ensure that women in sport is sustainable is by having female leaders, so they are in a positions to make decisions when these key events go on.

Pique: You are one of the very few women in the history of the Olympics to be invited to join the IOC and are still serving with its commissions. You were also recently elected to the Board of the World Olympians Association. How has this helped women in sport?

CC: “Positional power gives you a chance to have a voice at a table, but I think that it is more than that. It is a collective effort of many people doing many things, and working with men in key leadership roles as well to help them understand that their wives are getting involved with sports or their grandchildren or their daughters.

You have to work with the organizations that are there to remind them of the value that can be placed on the women in sport because they can empower other women, and they are role models for other women whether it is in business, culture, or sport.

There is also a huge responsibility that the IOC has along with other sport organizing committees to ensure that what we do from a humanitarian point of view can also touch young women as well.

There are programs that try to ensure that young girls in war-torn countries or countries where traditional sport might not be acceptable work around religions and traditions and cultures and those help.

We have to be sensitive to that so I think when you are a woman on those boards you can be more sensitive.

One of my greatest examples is Nawal El Moutawakel the first Muslim woman to win a gold medal (hurdles) in 1984 (Summer Olympics in Los Angeles) and a very good friend of mine. She started the very first women-only race in Morocco. I went to one of the first ones when there was only about 1,000 people there. Now about 20,000 women go of all religions and they are running through the streets of Casablanca and it is because she is a female leader who said; ‘Look, I want young girls in my community and my country to get involved in sport.’ So she created a sport that is relevant to the young women there and made that happen. And that had nothing to do with positional power it had to do with what was in her heart - she did what was right.

Now she is an IOC member and that is an example of someone who does great work.

Pique: What would you say to young people about what the 2010 Games will mean to them?

CC: I always say to the kids to keep their hearts and keep their minds open and to find ways to be engaged, to learn about the many facets of the Olympics. Yes, it is about building infrastructure, yes it is about what we need from a facility point of view and what we will leave as a legacy, but the Olympic movement has been around in its modern capacity for over 100 years and it has remained relevant for a reason.

And part of that reason is because the lessons are universal. The pillars on which it stands, sport, culture, education, sustainability those are all universal and there is something that each and every one of us can grasp from the pillars of the Olympic movement. The athletes are what you see but there is so much behind that, so much more.

Pique: What can the Olympics achieve?

CC: It can move a young boy across a track, it can move a city to come up with creative agendas for the community, it can move a country to accelerate projects that they have, it can move us to really do so much.

At the end of the day we are all going to be so affected by (the 2010 Games) and to find the common good and the common goals should be the end goal.

We can’t be everyone’s answer to everything but we can certainly use what we have and the responsibility that we have to create those legacies to our full advantage. We only have a small window of opportunity for some of these things but the Olympic door really is always open.

Pique: What can you say about unethical behaviour in sport such as doping? Do you feel confident that the IOC is tackling this?

CC: Absolutely. The pressure from sponsors, the pressures from television, the pressure to not have kids involved in sport by concerned parents is powerful.

We have to trust the leadership, but I am all for parents putting pressure on, and paying attention to their kids when it comes to the coaches or other things. Parents need to be involved.

We need more kids involved in sport and especially with all the issues going on kids and parents need to feel that sport is a safe place.

We have to have trusted leadership so that parents know that we are going to do the right thing. I feel a great responsibility to that.

Pique: Are you confident that things are moving along well as far as the budget, the venues and so on for the 2010 Games?

CC: I think we are heading for a great Games. There are things we can’t control, of course. We can’t control acts of God, and we can’t control how the weather is going to be.

But I have been to nine Olympic Games and I am confident. And I am also very confident about the relationship that the IOC has with VANOC (the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games).

I firmly believe that our milestones are there, our budgeting is there… We are doing well, we should celebrate that, but we should never let our guard down.

We know that the success of these Games can’t be measured until the last person has left Vancouver and the torch has been extinguished, so we have to remain on our toes and alert at all times, but that being said we have a team that is very prepared.

Pique: You have talked with athletes from other parts of the world, are they excited about coming to the 2010 Games?

CC: They are so excited about coming to Vancouver because they know that they can trust Canadians. We put on an excellent Winter Games before (in Calgary in 1988). We have hosted major championships before in many sports so we have great technology. We are known for expertise in sport leadership and we also have a very strong National Olympic Committee, too. I think one of the things that will define us, and defines every Games, is that we have to prepare our athletes to stand on the podium.

Pique: How can we ensure that there is support for sport after the Games are over?

CC: Well, building a sport culture is a huge part of it and building a sport culture is cultivating leadership, it is cultivating volunteers, and it is also cultivating an environment where people feel that our athletes do deserve that continued support. And not only our winter athletes but our summer athletes as well.

There are some great residual benefits in the training legacy and facilities legacy. But the success of most Games is the success of the local team. We saw that in Torino in 2006. As soon as Italy started winning, oh my God, everyone was engaged. So we need the success of the local team, but that being said any problems that our team gets into people remember that too.

I have no doubt that we will win some gold medals but I also have no doubt that we won’t be winning them at all costs.

That is also very important.